Community

A community is a social group of people of any size whose members share certain common traits. These common traits can be a multitude of things — interests, religion, affliction, occupation, race, etc. Community can also refer to a locality and the people who live there, as they share a common location of residence and presiding government. While community is not often an official term to denote a locality, it is commonly used in the social sciences as a spatial or political unit that delineates a particular type of social group.

Additionally, community can refer to the psychological sense of fellowship that members of a community feel when they are together. Two psychologists, David W. McMillan and David M. Chavis, proposed in an influential study that this "sense of community" is due to four elements — membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and a shared emotional connection. (Photo: Shutterstock)